It's amazing how much you can pack in to a two week trip! We felt bad that we couldn't do our typical three weeks this year which made us have to miss Blanding. But it turns out that when you miss Blanding, the Blanding relatives come to you! We had the Oswald reunion in Mendon at Todd and Nikki's this year and it was so much fun. Nearly everyone in the family came at least for part of it! We were missing Jordan and Mandy's husband Thomas. But I think that was all. Uncle Arlen and Aunt Karla and a couple of their kids and families came down for one of the days and Aunt Loa came too. We spent lots of time visiting and eating and playing games in Todd's beautiful back yard and it was so much fun to catch up with everyone and see all the babies and little kids. It's so weird that I'm a great aunt I have to say.
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| Monica's little Stockton is so adorable. |
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| And so is Jessie's little boy Rhys. |
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| Kaya and SkyAnn's little girl Lennon loved painting rocks together. |
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On July 7th, Kalen and I celebrated 23 years of marriage! Just let that sink in for a minute. That is so crazy to me that we've been together for that long. We celebrated the day with our kids and with Todd, Brecken, Koby and Randall by going up Logan Canyon. |
First we stopped at Rick's Spring which I don't think I've been to in years and years. The kids had a ton of fun climbing around.
Todd offered Brecken $20 if he would lie down in the frigid water.
Brecken took him up on it. But I'm not sure he felt like it was worth $20 after all. It was seriously cold water.
Then we went to Tony Grove--one of our favorite places on planet Earth. It is just so beautiful. We hiked around the lake and took Todd's canoe and kayak out on the water. Kalen and I took a turn and rowed out to where we could see a baby moose standing at the waters edge. It was just amazing. I wish I could have captured a picture of it but I was too afraid to take my phone with me in case we tipped over which had a fairly high probability of happening with my luck! Thankfully we didn't capsize though there were a few close calls.
There was still some snow left over! The kids had fun "skiing" down it.
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Our original plan had been to spend a few hours up the canyon and then go to the temple to do a session. But while we were there, we ran into some old Oswald family friends, Rulon and Margaret Johnson, and that visit with them set us back quite a bit. So we decided to postpone the temple trip for a different day when we weren't so rushed (or so sweaty).
So on our way back into Logan, we stopped for round one of Aggie Ice Cream. Yum! It's probably a really good thing that we don't live there anymore or I'd have a lot more weight to lose than I currently do. But oh, I miss that place!
After the ice cream we decided to make a stop at the temple grounds after all just so the kids could get a closer up look at it. It was kind of cool while we were there because we saw a couple of newly married couples who had just come out of the temple and were getting pictures taken. It was crazy to reflect that that was us 23 years earlier.
While we were there we decided to try to recreate our favorite wedding picture. It somehow didn't look as good as the original.☺
We did make it back to the temple another day with Todd and Nikki and Sherrie and Kevin. That was a really fun group date which we followed up with dinner at El Toro Viejo where our niece Natalie got to be our server.
Another day we made a quick trip down to Layton to have a little visit with Timothy before he flew out to Qatar for a six month deployment. We had a nice visit with him and David and Samuel and at the tail end Alison and Mike and their kids came too so we were pretty packed into the hotel room. My phone was dead so I didn't get to document that excursion. My parents and Susannah came up as we were leaving and the rest of them went to Hill Air Force Base to their family splash pad where they had fun playing. But we had more playing at the Oswald reunion to do so we headed back up there where we met up with the family at First Dam for some more fun with canoes and kayaks and bridge jumping for some of the braver among us.
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Kaya decided to give bridge jumping a try. It took some coaxing but finally she did it!
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And then Kendall caved to peer pressure!
We took some family photos of each family but somehow somebody got the idea to try to do some "Awkward Family Photos" so each family had to come up with some sort of silly or embarrassing pose. Susan was the photographer for that so I haven't seen how any of those came out yet. If I ever get a copy of ours, I'll add it on here. I did try to snap one of Kalen and his family though. So silly.
The teenagers and young adults of the family also had a ton of fun together. One morning they all got up early and went back up Logan Canyon to visit the Wind Caves. Next time we go out, I want to go visit there myself. It looks so amazing!
The day that Eric, Ashley, and Alexa were leaving we spent the morning in Garland at Sherrie's where they had been sleeping since not everyone could crowd into Todd and Nikki's at night. We did our laundry there because the septic system at Todd's was having major issues and we had to be really careful with stuff like laundry or showers or even flushing the toilet too much--not the best timing for a huge reunion! They had to rent a port-a-potty just to conserve water.
Kaya had been dying to get out there because Sherrie has a trampoline and she had remembered Eric teaching her and Lynnsey to do back flips the last time we were visiting and she wanted to do it again.
Once Eric and the girls were all packed and ready to go we all went back into Logan where we all met up at Aggie Ice Cream. Tyson was able to get away to come and visit during that outing and it was so fun to see him since it has been years and years since we last saw him.
Kaya got a fun Tai Kwan Do lesson from Alexa while we were there.
Alison and Mike and their kids came for ice cream too and then they left Bentley, Lydia and Barrett with us and took Kendall and Lynnsey with them up to Rexburg to do a campus visit at BYU-Idaho. They all had a fun day together but none of them came away with any desire to make that their college of choice. Apparently the dress code was a deal breaker for them--no shorts or capri's or even flip flops! (Which most of them were wearing for their tour! Oops!)
While they were exploring campus so indecently dressed, we had fun with the younger kids. We went back out to Garland so we could finish doing laundry and the kids could play more on the trampoline and with all the kittens and dogs. And then we went back to Mendon and took the kids to the playground while we waited for Alison and Mike to get back and then we all bought shaved ice from Shonee's Shack.
The next day we spent the morning with the Bramhall's doing a campus visit at Utah State. It was so much fun!!! It totally made Kalen and I and Alison and Mike nostalgic for our college days there and we had the funniest tour guide named Ryker that was constantly cracking the dumbest jokes and making us all laugh. I'm pretty sure the kids all wanted to go to school there because of him. After a fun tour that totally made Alison and I want to go back to college and be roommates, they gave us vouchers to get a free lunch at the food court. That was a nice touch that none of the other colleges we visited gave us!
Things slowed down a bit with most of the family heading back to their homes so we had some nice time to visit with Todd and Nikki some more. Brecken took Spencer and Kaya to visit his bees which was a fun adventure for them.
Finally it was time for us to switch gears and head to Duchesne for part two of our trip. We met up with Bramhall's again and made a stop at BYU in Provo for another campus visit there. It was one of Isabel's top choices so she wanted to see it and we thought we'd better do it too since Taylor was actually going to be going there but had never set foot on campus. And we signed Kendall and Lynnsey up too just because. It was fun too, but we all agreed that USU was a better tour. Still it was good for Taylor to be able to see his future home for the next few years. I do wish we had been able to do the campus tours for him when he was choosing a college though. We took him to USU but we just took him around ourselves rather than doing a formal tour. He actually admitted that if he had gone on those tours before he made his college choice, he may have chosen Utah State over BYU. I think he was feeling a little bit overwhelmed as we walked around campus realizing that it was so enormous. But I'm glad we went or I think he would have really struggled if he had set foot on campus for the first time ever when he was moving in.
The kids loved going into one building where they learned that BYU had a huge role in some of the animated movies like Kung Fu Panda. Bentley was especially impressed because he is really interested in that kind of thing and while he was won over by BYU, Isabel was not. She was far more interested in Utah State after the campus visits.
After the tour we decided to get ice cream from the Creamery so we could judge for ourselves if they were better than Aggie Ice Cream. It was yummy but the Creamery has nothing on Aggie Ice Cream!
We arrived in Duchesne finally to find the house in complete chaos. Apparently it had been some time since the house had been cleaned. Thankfully we weren't actually sleeping there. We just stopped in so that Alison could make the dinner that she was taking up to camp that night. While she did that, I scrubbed the bathroom knowing that when we came back from camp and everyone needed to get ready for Susannah's wedding, we would all be needing showers.
Then we headed up to Mountain Home to the portion of the ranch that my dad and Jonathan were given from my Grandpa's estate. They had set up motor homes and trailers for everyone in a semi-circle. My dad had built some really awesome picnic tables and they had brought up a bunch of four-wheeler's and side-by-side's for the occasion. It was so much fun to be literally in the middle of nowhere with so much space to explore! We all had fun walking and riding all over the place. I got to take one of the side-by-sides for a drive and I wasn't sure I was going to find my way back but it was a beautiful drive. Later I took Kalen on the same drive so he could see it.
At night my dad set up a projector and we got to watch some fun movies.
On one of the days we drove into town and went Starvation Reservoir for the day. The kids had a ton of fun in the water and we had a picnic and lots of time to visit with each other.
After the lake we had to stop at the church to help with a bit of the wedding set up. The kids took the opportunity to warm up and dry off on the sidewalks.
Then next day, Andrew was able to come out to join us with his kids. Unfortunately Marni had to work so she didn't get to come. We spent that day at camp riding around and playing horseshoes and corn hole. And then we went a tiny little restaurant in Bluebell for lunch. We took up the entire place. I felt bad for the customers that were there when we descended. They finished up mighty fast and made their escape.
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The last morning we took down camp and got ready to head back to the house to clean up and go to the wedding. My uncle Ellis came up to say hi and brought his puppy with him which was fun for the kids. Ellis said they'd undone all of his training to make him into a tough sheep dog because the puppy was in absolute heaven with so many kids going crazy over him.
That night we all managed to clean up and go to the wedding. It was a really nice ceremony followed by a fun reception that even included dancing.
Kaya and Lynnsey and their cousins really enjoyed being involved as flower girls and bridesmaids.
There was once mishap. While the kids were playing, Kaya was accidentally punched in nose by a cousin and wound up with a pretty big bloody nose. One of the kids ran to tell me what happened and I found Kaya in the bathroom with her new white flower girl dress covered in blood. Luckily she had another dress there that she was able to change into and I soaked her dress in the kitchen sink for the remainder of the reception. Thankfully it all ended up washing out of the dress and it was as good as new.
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| There's always that one weird relative. Spencer was happy to fill the role at the reception! |
After the reception, the Bramhall's had to leave immediately to catch a red-eye flight back to New Jersey. The rest of us cleaned up the mess and headed back to the house. The next morning we got up and packed up the cars to drive back. Yes, cars plural. Our white van finally reached the end of it's life and with Kendall driving now, we needed something a little more reliable that would get him to seminary and school every day. Jonathan found us a PT Cruiser that was in good shape with really low miles on it (under 40,000) that he fixed up and sold us. It wasn't the best time to buy a car with us trying to work on getting out of debt but Jonathan not only charged us a lot less than what he could have sold it for, but he's super patient and let us pay in small monthly payments.
It was a long drive back, made even longer without the anticipation of getting to see so many relatives. But it was pretty uneventful and we made good time. And in the end, it's always nice to get home again even when we had so much there waiting for us to deal with.
Awhile back Spencer remarked that he couldn't wait to turn twelve so he could get the priesthood, ride in the front seat of a car legally, and get his "man card" (which is an ongoing joke in the Oswald family for example, if a male says something in a really high voice or does something decidedly unmanly, someone will say: "You just lost a man card." So yeah.)
Anyway, on July 30th we celebrated Spencer 12th birthday!
And then the following Sunday, Spencer was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood at church! He was pretty excited. We have a great Young Men's President and Spencer has been counting down to be able to be an official part of the program. And now he gets to pass the sacrament every Sunday.
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And finally, at long last, Spencer had the chance to sit in the front passenger seat! It's crazy that he really is old enough to do all of those things!
Meanwhile, back in Utah, Taylor was spending extra time with relatives before being able to move into his dorm in August. It kind of stunk that we had to leave him when there was so much of the summer left and he actually had employment here, but we couldn't figure a way for him to go back out in time for school later so we just had to leave him out there. He had more fun with Todd and Nikki as well as his cousins there and he also went and spent some time in Blanding. One day Susan took him to the Bluff Fort where she volunteers sometimes and while they were there, Taylor had fun selling Native American Flutes by demonstrating how they work as he serenaded customers with some music.
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